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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

the beginning of the study exercises

Tonight was my first night preparing for the LCSW exam... or my 2nd. You saw those posts. To get started, I thought I'd take a practice test to get a feel for what kind of questions I may see. Not too bad for someone that feels totally ill-prepared for what I am embarking upon. I took almost no clinical classes but soon I will be licensed as such. My prep wasn't formal or timed but I did make it through 33 practice questions. I decided to stop there so I could read the answers while the questions and my reasonings were fresh in my mind. 22/33 correct (66.7%). Of those missed:
6 were diagnostic/definitions-- not surprising as I know I don't know that stuff. That's why I've selected the DSM as my main study text. I'm debating on rather or not I want to reread my abnormal psychology book. Plus: it'll be simpler to read than the DSM. Con: it will have the same basic information as the DSM; perhaps I should spend my time elsewhere to get more varied information. Maybe I should read both but not read about the same topic in both books. For example, study personality disorders in the DSM but psychotic disorders in the abnormal psych book.
2 were general questions about the DSM, such as how it is organized.
1 was a question about medication. The question looked at the class of medication. When I read the explanation and saw what was listed as examples, I knew the right answer.
1 was an example of me being tricked by the wording. Part of what I hope to learn from practice tests is to be a careful reader and not get tricked out of correctly answering things I know. One missed. I focused on the wrong part of the question and probably answered a different question correctly (i.e., the one I was answering when marking my response). 
1 I classify as other/unknown. I still don't know what it's talking about.

The practice test has 150 questions. Seems like I'll be doing a cold practice for a while before really getting into the studying. Current status: assessing where I am and gleaning what type of materials need to be studied. Note to self: Read the NASW ethics book before taking this test. 

Any ideas of how I can exercise while sitting and studying? lol

Namaste.    

2 comments:

  1. Leg lifts. Kegels. Deep Breathing. And acupressure - GV 26. (http://drbenkim.com/acupressure-GV-26.html)

    Mostly, have fun learning new things.

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  2. interesting. thank you. i thought of you as i drove back to jackson today. we never discussed yr book, which i thoroughly enjoyed. sorry to have not given feedback closer to when i read it. it inspires me, or provides wishful thinking, to a higher quality of living.

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